Straw repels Evil

It's no secret that Justice Secretary Jack Straw and Secretary Of Whatever He Tales A Fancy To Peter Mandelson don't get on, and now the gloves are well and truly off.

Mandelson, who not long ago got involved in a bit of a spat with the eminently dislikable Tory George Osborne (it never came to much, but served very well at taking a bit of the flak being directed at parliament by the media after the expenses scandal) and who has been forced to resign from the House of Commons on two separate occasions, is a bit of a mixed blessing as far as Labour's top brass are concerned - he's an extremely clever politician (he was largely responsible for Labour's election win back in 1997) and always gets what he wants, so if he wants what you want and he's on your side you're onto a winner. Unfortunately, he has one very slight drawback - he's the spawn of Lucifer, the public loathe him (except those in Hartlepool, for some odd reason - they kept voting for him as their MP) and he gives the impression that sooner or later he's going to stab the entire Cabinet in the back and annex the party as his own personal kingdom.

"Argh! What fools we have been!" Jack Straw wards off The Evil One.

Now, if you're a Cabinet minister, you get paid a very tasty £144,520 per year along with all sorts of perks such as the notorious second homes allowance and, in some cases, even grace-and-favour (translation: free) accomodation; so it's no wonder that those lucky MPs who have found their way into the Cabinet are pretty damn keen to stay right where they are (though to be fair, there's an never-proven rumour that some of them want to keep their positions so they can use them in Britain's best interests). Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, while more than happy to let Mandelson prowl the Commons' corridors provided he only drank the blood of those they sought to dispose of, have both given unitentional indications that they consider him a man of whom one should be wary - which could be why Mandelson got a Life Peerage thrust upon him and was shuffled off to the House of Lords, which is the nearest British politics comes to hammering a stake through the heart and burying the body in a welded-up coffin, because unlike Hereditary Peers - who have been able to resign and contest by-elections since 1963 when Tony Benn changed the law and gave up his Viscount title so that he could stand as a socialist (becoming one of the most popular MPs in history) - Life Peers are, or have been, quite literally stuck in the position for life. This was not the first time that a figure considered dangerous by the Government has been quietly got rid of in this way.

However, as we blogged last month, the Government changed all that. In their efforts to revamp the House of Lords, which hasn't been viewed in a very good light by the electorate - who see it as an out-dated and unfair institution - for many years, they brought in new legislation which was very much the equivalent of digging the coffin up, pulling out the stake and saying "Here's my jugular, Vlad - it's party-time!"

The Devil - though he stayed put for the moment - was free to ride out anytime he chose.

Jack Straw seems to be the most worried about the nature of what Labour has unleashed upon the world, because he's just shipped in several tons of industrial strength garlic and is about to hang it from every rafter, wall, ceiling, hook and anything else in the Commons that a bulb of garlic could ever be hung on by announcing he's creating a new law that will force any Life Peer who does choose to resign to go into quarantine for five years during which they will be unable to stand for any elected position. This means that Mandelson would be in his early 60s by the time he once became eligible, close to retirement age and - since the general trend seems be for younger MPs and party leaders in particular (Menzies Campbell, ex-Liberal Democrat leader, was commonly thought to be too old even though he was just 66 when he left the position) - this could well end any chances he has of leading the party.

Dark Lord Mandelson faces op

Peter Mandelson, the man whose career would not die, has been admitted to hospital for an operation to remedy what is said to be a "benign condition of the prostate."

Get well soon, Lord Peter!
(adapted from an original image at Wikipedia, used in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license)

Hopefully, none of our readers were expecting us to be nasty about this - seriously, what do you take us for? We've not been too kind to him on this blog (and we still won't be, because he's a nasty, slimy, self-serving little git) but hey - the man's ill. We'd feel bad if something went wrong, and we wished Mrs. Thatcher well when she broke her arm recently - Mandelson's pretty harmless in comparison. It'd be horrible if the anaesthetist messed up or something.

Benign growth of the prostate is very common amongst men of Archimandrite Mandelson's age (55), but treatment is not always necessary (especially if you're working class and don't have private medical insurance, we should think, both of which are unlikely to apply in this case), and symptoms - such as difficulty passing urine - are usually mild.

While the surgeon's poking about up there, perhaps he could have a quick look up the man's jacksie too? We realise this will be a highly unpleasant task but it seems difficulty in passing urine isn't the only problem he's been having, because he's brimful of shit too.

Exclusive: Mandelson has reconstructive surgery

The Archimandrite Mandelson, leader of the Starveling Cult and probable Most Evil Man in the Universe (Darth Vader lists him as a reference on his curriculum vitae and claims he was "the bestest teacher what I ever had" on Rate My Teachers.com), is already known for his chilling appearance and bloodthirsty ways. Some years ago he famously had his genetic code altered so that his eyes became a terrifying red colour; he has also had his skin lightened and is believed to have had a number of changes carried out to his genitals, allowing him to inject any combination of an assortment of different chemicals - including truth serum - into his partners.

As if all that isn't freaky enough, a recent photograph appears to show that the First Secretary of State - who is widely said to have been the architect of New Labour - has had further surgery in order to radically redesign his hands so that each finger is now tipped with a smaller, fully-functioning hand of its own. This leaves him with a total of 40 fingers and ten thumbs.

Don't worry - we're not going to make you look at a photo of his genitals.

News has come in today revealing that Lord Mandelson is a member of around 35 separate Cabinet committees that have been created in order to cover matters related to economic, domestic and foreign policies. There are 44 committees in total, of which Prime Minister Gordon Brown is a member of fewer than Mandelson, leading Conservative MPs to criticise what they term the unelected minister's "powerbase." "It is obvious that Peter Mandelson is the real unelected prime minister pulling the strings at No 10," says a Tory party spokesman.

Acid Rabbi nipped down to Westminster where he was lucky enough to bump into one of the Lord's many under-secretaries who, once we'd finished with the thumb-screws, was happy to act as an unofficial spokesman as long as we guaranteed anonymity since he was afraid his boss would punish him. "It's no secret now that Lord Peter sits on almost all Parliamentary committees," he told us. "He's involved in all sorts of things from those that discuss Africa to the Olympics to immigration. Basically, once he reached ten of them he found he was spreading himself a bit thinly, so he's had the reconstructive surgery on his hands so that he can keep a finger in 42 pies simultaneously."

Acid Rabbi - undoubtedly the finest investigative journalism on the Internet.
Yarmulkes off to Iain M. Banks, who we hope won't be offended at us nicking his ideas and adapting the cover of The Algebraist (having some idea of his politics, we suspect he won't).

Mandelson for PM?

There has been much discussion over the last few months, especially on the blogosphere and including here, over whether or not Lord Mandelson wants and is ever likely to be Prime Minister or at the very least the leader of the Labour party.

This is, quite frankly, the most terrifying image we have ever seen.

Some have taken solace (Mandelson enjoys the same sort of popularity amongst the public as diarrhoea does) in the fact that having now been enobled and made a Life Peer, the ex-MP for Hartlepool cannot stand for any elected Commons post. Others - Acid Rabbi included - are so convinced and suspicious of Mandelson's slimy Machiavellian ways (he still manages to hang onto a political career despite two forced resignations and a major scandal, any of which would have finished off a mere mortal) that we were certain that, if he does indeed want the position, it would be only a matter of time before he turned up some arcane bit of legislation that enabled him to do so.

When asked by the Financial Times whether he would ever consider once again standing as an MP, mandelson replied: "It's not legally possible to do that. I am trapped. I believe it is for life." Hereditary Peers have been able to resign since the Peerage Act of 1963, legislation largely created by Tony Benn who gave up his title of 2nd Viscount Stangate so that he could stand as a socialist candidate. Mr. Benn became the MP for Bristol South East the same year, a position he held onto for twenty years and enjoyed an illustrious career in which he held an assortment of ministerial posts until his retirement in 2001. As one of the all-time most popular British politicians among both the electorate and MPs, he has been given the rare privilege of being allowed to continue using the Commons' library and refreshment facilities (anybody wondering if Acid Rabbi is not being entirely impartial during this brief biography of Mr. Benn and his career would be entirely correct). Life Peers however - perhaps as life peerages serve as a very effective way for prime ministers to bloodlessly dispose of anyone they suspect of being a dangerous rival - have not previously been given the same choice.

Mandelson can save himself the bother of searching though the rule books to see if there's an unguarded door he can sneak back in through, though, because on Monday a new Constitutional Reform Bill will go before Parliament, part of which will allow Life Peers to give up titles and stand as candidates for elected posts. There have been many calls for the Lords to be made up entirely of elected members which resulted in a 2007 Commons vote deciding that between 80 and 100% of the Upper House should be comprised of elected figures. At present, all Lords are appointed by the Government except for the remaining 92 Hereditary Peers who, upon death, are replaced by means of local by-elections. The new Bill will put an end to this practice so that - gradually - all hereditaries will be replaced with appointed peers.

Since the majority of the public say they are not in favour of hereditary peerages, this is likely to receive popular support. The more cynical political observer, meanwhile, may well wonder if garnering that support was always intended and if it was carefully designed as a smokescreen to shroud covert machinations by Mandelson himself.

Brown loses another friend

If one of your friends suddenly decided they no longer wanted anything to do with you, began verbally attacking you and went off with the hump you'd probably just think: "What's crawled up their arse and died?" and lose little sleep over it. But what if another friend then did the same thing, and then another and another and another until you had no friends left? Unless you happen to be possessed of the most incredible ignorance and arrogance in equal measures, sooner or later you'd have to stop and ask yourself: "Maybe it's me...perhaps there's something about me or something I do that people dislike?" Either that or you'd start washing a bit more often and experiment with some other types of deodorant.

Gordon Brown can't possibly have failed to notice that he's not very popular these days, but is he wondering why?

Who could ever be so arrogant as to do anything but, you may wonder. How about Gordon Brown? In just one week, three of his mates have done the dirty on him. First there was Lord Malloch-Brown, one of Mr. Brown's GOAT (Government Of All Talents) ministers, rapidly enobled and brought into Government soon after he took over the reins of the Labour party. Malloch-Brown, once believed to have been one of the PM's closest allies, originally put his decision to quit down to "personal and family reasons" - often translated from politician-speak into English as "I'm pissed off but don't want to say why just yet" - but just a few days later delivered a harshly-worded condemnation of Brown's leadership and the party's current policies which he compared to those of Latin American and South-East Asian nations.

Within a few days, fellow GOAT and Health Minister Lord Darzi, a top surgeon, also signalled his intention to leave the gang. Though he has so far kept relatively quiet concerning his thoughts on Mr. Brown and is claiming his decision was made so that he can return to his patients and research, Conservative Andrew Lansley and LibDem Norman Lamb both suggested there might be more that the Lord is choosing to leave unsaid. Another GOAT, Lord Digby-Jones went last year and a fourth, Lord Carter, has said that he too will quit. Out of a flock originally numbering five, only Lord West remains.

Hazel Blears was highly critical of Gordon Brown's YouTube appearance, which she compared unfavourably with going out and meeting the voters.

A number of MPs have also quit over the expenses scandal and taken the opportunity to throw their metaphorical drinks in Gordon's face as they left the clubhouse. Hazel Blears, standing down after it emerged that she had enjoyed stays at some of London's most fashionable (and expensive) hotels and lined her own pockets at the tax-payer's expense rocked the boat more than most, choosing as she did to go just a few days before June's elections in which Labour staged their worst performance in party history. Other female MPs have compared him to a Mafia boss: "Personally he's very warm, charming and friendly," says former Environment Minister Jane Kennedy, "but when dealing with his politics he engages with a darker side of himself and he believes the end justifies the means."

Even Alistair Darling, the man who stepped into Gordon's old job as Chancellor of the Exchequer, has criticised his leader's style. "We have got to make sure that ... we sharpen ourselves up, that we have a clear message of what we are about," he said back in April 2008, leading the Conservative George Osborne to claim Mr. Darling's comments were "an unprecedented attack on the Prime Minister by his most senior Cabinet colleague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer."

Yesterday, James Purnell - the ex-Cabinet Minister whose resignation on Election day was very nearly the cause of a party leadership challenge, which Mr. Brown avoided by the skin of his teeth - admitted that he had been considering leaving the Government since last December after he lost faith in Gordon and his ability to successfully lead Labour into the next General Election. Purnell was the most senior MP of the eleven who departed from the Cabinet in June this year, when he publically called for Mr. Brown to step aside and allow a new leader to come forth. His resignation letter to the PM included the statement "I now believe your continued leadership makes a Conservative victory more, not less likely." That's about as close as most politicians come to saying: "You're shit and you know you are." In an interview with The Guardian, Mr. Purnell attacked what he called Labour's "small c conservatism," adding that there is a "need to open up New Labour, reinvent it and then eventually move beyond it." With Brown at the party's helm, moving beyond New Labour looks highly likely to happen next year - unfortunately, it'll be David Cameron in control and his handmade John Lobb brogues are going to be stomping the accelerator harder than a copper stomps a newspaper vendor in an effort to speed as rapidly as possible away from it.

David Cameron's got a tank full o' lies and he's ready to go.

Even Lord Mandelson, a man who owes his job and numerous titles almost entirely to Mr. Brown, has been disparaging. In June, he offered the PM some advice if he is to remain Labour leader, saying that he needed to be seen as "being decisive. Secondly, in listening to people and respecting official advice you receive. And thirdly, introducing a bit of humour and jollity to your work," which suggests rather transparently that these are things Mr. Brown has not been doing thus far. Advice from Mandelson on avoiding being knocked from the top spot is a bit like advice from a cobra on the subject of how to avoid being bitten by a snake - he knows precisely what you've been doing wrong because he's an expert in spotting weaknesses.

Today brings news that Lord Sainsbury, the supermarket baron who has financed Labour for years and ex-PM Tony Blair's most loyal and trusted Minister, is turning his back on the party after donating around £4.5 million in the two years since Mr. Brown came to prominence. Last month, Lord Sainsbury set up the rather Orwellian-sounding Institute for Government which has since been serving as a training facility for Conservative would-be Ministers, with staff who have been preparing senior Tories for the Civil Service. According to The Times, Lord Sainsbury "found his plans constantly thwarted" during his eight years at the Department for Trade and Industry. "It wasn’t that civil servants were trying to frustrate you — the Yes Minister myth — but after a bit you realised you were being asked to work a system designed for a previous age when the problems were much less complicated," he says. The paper also says that the Institute's visitor's book reveals that 15 permanent secretaries - including Cabinet Secretary and most highly-ranked civil servant Sir Gus O'Donnell - have attended meetings held at the organisation which occupies a house overlooking London's St. James' Park. Losing a supporter of Lord Sainsbury's calibre is evidence of a discontent even deeper than previously thought running through Labour.

Anyone else would have got the message by now. The Labour party is, as a whole, evidently deeply unhappy with and distrustful of Gordon Brown and his leadership which is liable to lead to a general feeling of resentment and apathy. A political party characterised by emotions such as those stands little or no hope of winning any election and Labour looks set to repeat June's dismal performance when, if all goes according to Mr. Brown's plans, we go to the polling stations next summer.